Toronto and Montreal ranked world&#039;s &#039;best places to live&#039; in by The Economist

DH Vancouver StaffJan 29, 2015 8:20 pm

Toronto and Montreal have been ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s brand new Safe Cities Index as the top two ‘best places to live’ in the world.

The Safe Cities Index examined safety and security in 50 global cities, weighing each city on their digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security. Within the overall Index, Toronto was ranked eighth in the world based on its performance in these factors while Montreal was 14th in the same ranking.

However, when it comes to how Toronto and Montreal performed in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s six other indexes, both cities come out at first and second place, respectively; these cities are the ‘best places to live’ based on the Economist’s index of its own indexes.

These are the national-level indexes of Business Environment, Democracy and Global Food Security as well as the city-level indexes of Safe Cities, Cost of Living and the renowned Liveability ranking, which is the separate index Vancouver is known for consecutively ranking highly in.

In the 2014 Liveability Index, the Economist ranked Vancouver at third place and Toronto at fourth in a list of 140 world cities based on a broader consideration of 30 factors such as safety, healthcare, educational resources, infrastructure and the environment. The 2014 Cost of Living Index also evaluated Vancouver, naming the city as the 21st most expensive place in the world by comparing prices of over 160 products and services.

Vancouver was not one of the 50 cities evaluated in the Economist’s 2015 Safe Cities Index. Toronto and Montreal were the only Canadian cities ranked in this index.